


Forms of Magic

by LordRebeccaSama



Series: Abandoned Works! [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Brakebills, Complete, Don't post on another site, Drabble, Dudley Dursley - Freeform, Gen, James Potter - Freeform, Kid Harry Potter, Like, Lily also wento to Brakebills after Hogwarts, Magic, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Peter Pettigrew - Freeform, Petunia Dursley - Freeform, Pre-Series, Some background knowledge of Magicians is preferred, The Dursleys - Freeform, Vernon Dursley - Freeform, Young Harry Potter, and Harry can do Magician magic, for now, not everyone can do both, sirius black - Freeform, the magic systems are different, voldemort - Freeform, what if
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:29:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25914382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LordRebeccaSama/pseuds/LordRebeccaSama
Summary: Magic is weird. It can reveal itself in many different ways: a flying toy here, floating slowly to the ground there. At a young age, experiences like that can be any type of magic. Sometimes it can be a couple different types both trying to be the driving influence.For Lily Potter, that was the case. Some accidental magic was the result of her Wizarding magic, but a good portion of it was another type. That other type was subtle. It takes a certain type of magic to become a Magician.Harry Potter was another such case.  He was always causing things to float near him as a baby. The feeling in the air any time he made something float; the little twitching of his fingers with a half formed spell he tried to copy from Lily. He would be a powerful Magician.But first, he would have to survive Hogwarts. And even before that, he would have to survive the Dursleys.ORWhen Lily was done with Hogwarts, she went to University in America. After that she took a really weird entrance exam for a school called Brakebills, but it was fine. Her class actually survived till graduation. She goes home and has a kid. You know how that story ends.But this isn't about that. This is about Harry.
Series: Abandoned Works! [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/146832
Kudos: 7





	Forms of Magic

**Author's Note:**

> I always like this idea of these two very different magical worlds blending, but I haven't seen anyone do it like this. So I had to write it myself. Let's just ignore years. 7 extra years before Harry was born (ok 8 or 9 really cuz pregnancy is 9 months) Harry is born in an adjusted year and everyone's ages are adjusted so the age gaps remain the same (school age wise). Hand wave any inaccuracies away imo. That makes our boy Harry about 4 years older than Eliot, so he would've JUST graduated before Magicians plot starts. Idk how Harry knowing both types of magic would affect the plots.
> 
> I won't be continuing this (probably), but if someone wants to, feel free to continue, just let me know.

Lily goes to Hogwarts like normal, but afterwards instead of just getting married to James and getting pregnant, she says, ‘Fuck you, I want an education!’ to the Wizarding World (some people didn’t like that she was leaving in the middle of a war since her knowledge of Runes was top notch and could help them, but James was all for her living her life on her own for a bit, not in a ‘I can sleep with whoever I want for a bit.’ kind of way, but in a ‘Go make lasting memories. I’ll be here when you get back’ kind of way.) So, she fucks off to America for a bit. She goes to a muggle school for undergrad but grad school is when it gets exciting. She wasn’t planning on going for more school. Her joint Business/Political Science degree was more than enough of a starting ground to begin to fix the Wizarding World. 

But fate, you know. She ends up at this entrance exam for a school called Brakebills. It was weird. She was walking into her home at the end of the day, and then she was walking into an empty hallway. She grips her wand through her coat pocket, just in case, but when she gets to the exam room, she’s just calm. Nothing’s wrong. Any worries she has dissipated (such is the magic of the exam room). She sits the exam. She passes. She’s not sure what they do with the people who don’t, but it’s probably some sort of memory charm.

Afterwards, Dean Fogg asks her to do magic, and she doesn’t think he means what she learned in school. She asks for some water and a lily petal. They pull both out of a briefcase and hand them to her. She turns the petal into a tadpole. They welcome her into the school, and that’s that. She ends up being a Knowledge student (but it was a close call with being a Physical kid).

It was a hard three years. Barely any breaks. It’s hard for her to keep up with the Wizarding World. America seems to have two. The world of Magicians where Brakebills resided, and the traditional Wizarding World she knows. She gets news about both, but America doesn’t get much news from the UK. Her letters take a long time to reach James. She misses him. He never really did the hang of a phone.

He visited her once, on one of her breaks. Something told her to not tell James about Brakebills. It was an unknown. No one in the Wizarding World (who she had talked to) even mentioned this other magical society. Likewise, very few people at Brakebills even knew the Wizarding World existed. She knew he would distrust the school and the people, and she wasn’t about to lose the knowledge by dropping out now. So, she kept it a secret, hiding her books and pretending she was attending an ordinary graduate program. He never did find out about those three years and what really happened, even in the end.

Lily graduates Brakebills with a major in Spell Formation. Her thesis was on Defensive Protective Spells. She also learned Battle Magic. The magic was different. It flowed like warm honey through her veins. She had to focus to produce a spell, but in the end, they were always more powerful than anything she produced from her wand. She switched between the two constantly while in the privacy of her dorm. A wand spell for light here, a protective Koyosegi's Ward there. (She wondered how the wards would hold up to Wizards).

Alumni key in her pocket, she graduates, packs up her stuff, and goes back to England. Going home after three years was weird. New York was such a busy city, in a way that London was not. She missed it. It was also nice to not be in the middle of a war, but she avoided it long enough. 

Some things had changed (Moody lost a leg; the Weasleys were pregnant again, and the Healer was pretty sure it was twins this time), and some things didn’t (Sirius still pretended to be a dog to get out of working; James was just as handsome as when she left). They fought Voldemort; they got married; she got pregnant; they went into hiding. Then the prophecy happened.

She got in touch with an old professor from Brakebills asking about prophecies, but there wasn’t much on the subject. More seers ended up as Wizards, while natural psychics were Magicians. If prophecies existed, they were subject to interpretation, and then it made them self-fulfilling. The only way to avoid a prophecy is to not know it. Too late for that.

Harry was born at the end of July. She had wished so damn hard for him to be born sooner, or wait just one more day. Any sort of spell--both wizard and magician--that dealt with pregnancy (whether to induce labor early or to extend the pregnancy) was too dangerous.

Fine. If he was destined to be the savior, she would protect him until her dying day (and even then maybe longer). Going Niffin was a bad idea (Why would she stick around after? She wouldn’t have the connections anymore if she did that.), but maybe some sort of time spell set to go off if she starts to die? No, that wouldn’t work.

They went under Fidelius charm, choosing Peter at the last minute instead of Sirius. She tried to tell them that they couldn’t force anyone to tell the secret of a Fidelius, but the dumb men thought it was the best idea ever to switch.

Lily had to do something. The war was heating up. She cast a Probability Spell, and it didn’t look good. Most of the outcomes end with either her or Harry dying. Voldemort always finds them. Once she managed to convince them to change the charm back to Sirius, and they did, but they lived their lives out in the house. Never going outside while Voldemort grew in power. She got to see her little boy grow up, but at the expense of his freedom. Hogwarts wasn’t even an option that time. Harry died as a teenager because he got so fed up that he left the house and got caught by Death Eaters.

Other times, she stood aside and let Voldemort kill her baby. She fought-both as a Wizard and as a Magician. Her battle magic was more powerful, but took time to cast. Time she didn’t have. She stood in front and died staring the bastard in the eyes. Harry stayed alive in those. She didn’t know how since she never casted anything on him, but something must’ve happened. The spell could only show her so much of her choices. It could show her standing in the way, but not what she did prior to the confrontation. The more she cast it, the more likely one path will happen (them switching the secret keeper was an early casting of the Probability Spell).

She wouldn’t be able to live in a world without her son, and wasn’t about to go down the necromancy path to get him back. Both worlds frowned upon that. Life only went one way for a reason.

So, she left him a key.

Lily charmed the alumni key on an unbreakable chain with a notice-me-not spell on it. Next to it on the chain was a small charm in the shape of a trunk. It had all her Brakebills books, and some of the more useful Hogwarts ones. He would need them. She put it around his neck and told him that when he needed it the most, he’d find the key.

Pettigrew betrayed them, like she knew he would (this was the best outcome. She had to believe that since no outcome had them defeating Voldemort and coming out unharmed). She ran upstairs and placed Harry into his crib. He was calm as she casted the strongest Sumerian Shield Charm she could on the door. It took Voldemort three blasts to knock the door and surrounding wall down, and in that time, she was able to place Koyosegi's Ward on Harry. It wouldn’t do much, but she hoped it would protect him just a little better. Al-Elseewi's Heat Reduction was only a couple hand motions more and he was protected from heat and burns – just in case.

Voldemort blasted in and told her to stand aside. He said that every time. She did no such thing. She didn’t beg, or plead with him to spare Harry. Instead, she cursed him. Not with a wand, but with her hands and words. She just started moving, not really paying attention to the way her fingers moved or the words coming from her mouth. It was a spell full of intense hatred, for this monster so _willing_ to kill a child, and protective _love_ for her son. She let it go right as he sent the Killing Curse towards her. She fell.

The spell, though, that seemed to dissolve. With no source of magic, it started to die, except Lily had been using too much power in the spell, so it lingered just long enough. She had almost gone Niffin (sort of freaking out Voldemort in the process, so he paused long enough in confusion—and maybe a small hint of fear—to let more of the spell form) trying to protect her son, and it held on for a few more precious seconds. Those few moments were enough for Voldemort to send another curse at the toddler, and the spell to rip apart not only the killing intent, but also the castor (If Lily had gone Niffin, Voldemort and all his Horcruxes would have been toast, but that was never a path she wanted to take, and the Probability Spell only showed you options you thought would benefit). Tom Riddle died in agony, his soul shredding (accidentally sending a small piece into the small child in the form of a lightning bolt shaped scar across his head).

With that last burst of magic, Tom Riddle died, and the corner of the house exploded outwards onto the street. That’s when Harry started crying.

\--

Magic is weird. It can reveal itself in many different ways: a flying toy here, jumping off a swing and floating slowly to the ground there. At a young age, experiences like that can be any type of magic. Sometimes it can be a couple different types both trying to be the driving influence.

For Lily Potter, that was the case. Some accidental magic was the result of her Wizarding magic, but a good portion of it was another type. That other type was subtle. It made her seem like she was very adept at wandless magic. It was more common with this other type of magic to appear in previously magicless families. More so than Wizarding magic, anyway. (Why do you think most of the Wizarding World doesn’t know about Brakebills?) It takes a certain type of magic to become a Magician. Most Wizards can barely perform one wandless magic spell. The ones that can, they don’t even know they’re tapping into a different type of magic. It doesn’t help that they’re using the words associated with Wizarding magic.

Harry Potter was another such case. He was always causing things to float near him as a baby. Everyone was so proud of the accidental magic he performed, praising him for showing it so young. But Lily recognized it for what it was: Magician magic.

The feeling in the air any time he made something float; the little twitching of his fingers with a half formed spell he tried to copy from Lily. He would be a powerful Magician.

But first, he would have to survive Hogwarts. And even before that, he would have to survive the Dursleys.

It wasn’t easy living with them. It didn’t help that Toddler Harry was used to doing small amounts of magic. He quickly learned that his aunt and uncle did not like that. They didn’t outright beat him, but a rough smack, or a tight grip on his arm stopped the magic in its tracks. He soon forgot any spells he might’ve known. The small hand motions being lost.

Harry was five the first time his aunt made him cook, eyes watching him like a hawk. It didn’t go well, to say the least. The first time he burned himself on the pan, it didn’t hurt, but the second time had him crying out and startling Vernon and Dudley. Petunia scowled and told him to shut up and not burn the bacon.

He finished breakfast, only getting a slice of toast, water, and one small strip of very burnt bacon, and was sent out to the backyard to water the garden. Petunia was going to teach him how to weed the garden next week.

After the garden, he was sent to the park to stay there for the afternoon. He had to come home at four to help cook dinner. She gave him another two slices of bread with a thin smear of peanut butter for his lunch. It wasn’t much, but at least he had something.

The hose water has soothed his burnt hands, but not as much as he’d like. Harry sat in the trees, away from the playground, and cradled his hurt arm to his chest, wishing for some way to avoid burning himself in the future.

He sniffed, trying to not cry when a strange weight settled on his neck. He glanced down and saw a small blue key on a chain next to a small charm of a trunk. He gently unhooked the chain and held the charms up to his eyes.

The key gave off an otherworldly glow, seeming to _hum_ in his hands. He didn’t know what it was to, and he didn’t know if he wanted to know. The trunk had small hinges on it, so Harry pulled it off the chain and tried to open it. Maybe there would be a picture of his parents inside.

It grew in his hands, landing with a thump on the group. Harry was too shocked to move and touch it for a minute. He gently ran his hand over the top. The leather was worn and soft. Scuff marks ran along the edges and corners. There seemed to be a weird green burn on a corner, too. He traced the gold embossed ‘LP’ on the lid. Was this his mum’s trunk? The trunk glowed a soft yellow for a moment and settled down to his normal drab brown. He lifted his hand and it clicked open.

Harry gripped the chain with the key in one hand while he pushed with all his might to open the trunk. The top moved a lot more smoothly than he thought it would.

Inside were books. So many books. Most of them looked old and worn, but a couple (which looked like children’s books) looked brand new. On the top rested a letter written on parchment. While Harry couldn’t read that well yet, he knew his name. That was _his name_ on the letter. This trunk was for _him_. Him and _not Dudley_!

Harry delicately opened the letter. He couldn’t read most of it, despite recognizing a handful of letters. At the bottom, he sounded out the final two words: _Love, mum_ _❤︎_. It was from his mum. His mum _loved_ him.

He folded up the letter and held it close. She loved him and left him a letter and books. He spied a soft looking blanket and a stuffie under some books, too. He never got a present before. Even though he couldn’t read them now, he would protect everything in the trunk until he could.

Harry set the letter down next to him and picked up the top book. There was a picture of a hand doing a funny motion on the cover. Maybe this book would have pictures!

He flipped it open and there were a lot of words, but also pictures. Hands and arms with arrows covered the pages. Once in a while, he would swear a picture of a hand would flicker and move, showing the movement, but that made no sense.

Harry looked at the first picture and tried to imitate the hand motion. A pressure started to build up under his skin after the fifth time he moved his fingers like in the pictures. He yelped and lost the spell. That was…weird.

He flipped further in the book, looking at the pictures that demonstrated what the spells did. He stopped at a picture of a hand inside fire. It didn’t look like the hand was _on_ fire, just in it. That would be useful, especially is Aunt Petunia kept making him cook.

He slowly practiced each motion, concentrating on his finger position. It took him longer to learn the spell since one motion was a bit complicated and his fingers were tiny, but when Harry completed it, a warmth settled over his skin. A warmth he didn’t even realize was missing. Had he had this spell on him all this time? Who would’ve put it on him? Not Aunt Petunia. She didn’t even let Dudley watch TV about magic. Plus, he’d never seen her do any of the weird motions. Maybe…his mum did it. Maybe that’s how he survived the car crash. She protected him. That’s a nice thought.

The church bell tower struck three-thirty and Harry jumped. He’d been out all day and didn’t even realize it. His stomach growled and he stuffed his sandwich in his mouth, chewing as quick as he could as he stuffed the book and letter back into the trunk. The key and chain were still in his hand. How was he getting the trunk home? It was heavy, and Aunt Petunia wouldn’t let him keep it.

Maybe if he promised to keep it in his cupboard. It should fit. He would just sleep on top of it. Harry took a fortifying breath and wrapped his hands around the handle. The chain in his hand glowed a light blue and I spread to the trunk, which shrunk onto the chain. He fumbled with the charm before it could fall off.

“Wicked,” he breathed. He tied the chain back on, tucking the charms below his shirt and hoped that Aunt Petunia wouldn’t notice it (She didn’t. The Notice-Me-Not charm now excluded Harry, but continued to include everyone else).

He made it home in time to help with dinner, only burning his arm once, and whatever he did at the park protected him from getting burnt. He could feel it continuing to hum over his skin. He didn’t even have to recast it. Best day _ever_.

**Author's Note:**

> Please, someone else write this. Let me know and I'll tag it.


End file.
